


Goodbye

by IrreWilderer



Series: “L’habit ne fait pas le moine” [6]
Category: The Outer Worlds (Video Game)
Genre: F/M, Feelings, Fluff, smooches, subtle declarations of something
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-07
Updated: 2019-12-07
Packaged: 2021-02-25 22:06:56
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,866
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21702676
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IrreWilderer/pseuds/IrreWilderer
Summary: Finally on Monarch, Captain Archie and Vicar Max face a soon-to-be goodbye.
Relationships: The Captain/Maximillian DeSoto, The Captain/Vicar Maximillian DeSoto
Series: “L’habit ne fait pas le moine” [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1540777
Comments: 15
Kudos: 46





	Goodbye

Trees out-towering mountains; magenta leaves fluttering in sour breezes; a teal twilight marbled by rose auroras: thanks to colours, scents and extremities, Monarch seemed the most alien locale yet looked upon by Archie Quaice, late-coming ambler from Earth.

Kismet (and lack of cash) had the crew touching down in <WARNING! DANGEROUS! KISS YOUR ASS GOODBYE!> Cascadia. After a two-hour exchange of bullets for bite-wounds with native wildlife, things turned thankfully smooth. 

As the full party of Unreliable frequenters made tracks through badlands along the broken road to Stellar Bay, Archie barely managed to keep her hands-on mystifying to a simmer. _‘That’ll leave you itching!’_ and _‘you’ll rash redder than a blushin’ ‘mato, ma’am!’_ came in quite the chorus as she physically inspected the variously befuddling flora, and, to her lack-of-surprise, Ellie and Parvati proved correct. But curiosity sated to the background sounds of Max discussing tossball positions with Felix was worth it, making for a very edufying, comfortable late afternoon with a crew that felt more like kin.

The sun was low. The wind was cool. Between sight-seeing and scratching bothersome swathes of skin, Archie missed her squad becoming dry-gulched.

As the bend of highway they were courting passed between two sky-high cliff-faces, there came a low, garbled whooping. Neck-hairs stiffened; eyes got to gauging. As Archie’s team reached for their irons, gales of gunfire stormed from before and behind. 

Boxed-in by terrain and bandits, the sandy ground exploded for bullets. Charging ahead, Felix and Max took point. Their fairly prime gear (compared to the marauders’ mangled peashooters and plating) meant quality would outpace quantity. Twelve ruffians were whittled to seven, then five, with Parvati and Ellie providing back-up and Archie plying them with targets.

She aimed for legs; knees. Not yet (and not planning to ever be) complacent when it came to serving dirt-naps, Archie nonetheless made short work for the others.

Ricochet echoed through the area. Felix’s energetic, audible enthusiasm rose above the din of fire-exchange. And then, somehow, sound ceased altogether alongside a harried, gasping heave.

At twenty paces, Parvati fell lifelessly to the dirt.

Scooting boots towards the woman, Ellie left Felix to offer the super helpful observation of _‘Boss, I think she’s dead!’_ They’d settled down to one marauder, yet, somehow, the devil managed paydirt in the form of the motionless mechanic, and Archie saw red like a sunset. Soon the canyon was replete with unintelligible hollar, that last marauder set to howling at the sky, arms and legs useless for bullet wounds.

Making towards the crouching sawbones, the Unreliable’s captain shook.

“She’s alive,” Ellie reported, having shimmied Parvati’s helmet off. Lifting the woman’s eyelids, Ellie checked pupils.

“Thank the Architect,” Max said with a sigh, approaching the group.

Out in the open and a man down were inviting risk. Trusting the so-far predictable pattern of deserted buildings plentying the planet, Archie said, “Alright. Felix and I will get her on down the way.” She handed her rifle to Ellie. “The next empty burg we find, we bunk for the night. Days’ getting long, anyhow.”

“Maybe we keep the chit-chat to a minimum this time?” Ellie suggested, pointing out that their dropped-guard had the blame for this.

Affirming with a nod, Archie balanced Parvati between herself and Felix, the out-like-a-light woman’s arms draped about their shoulders.

By the looks of her crew, however—dudded up in side-eyes and taut silence—something was going unsaid. Dogging the trail of their stares, Archie decided to clarify.

“We’re leaving him,” she mentioned of the marauder still hissing through his teeth and trying to drag off along the sand.

“You serious?”

Archie glanced Felix. “Don’t have to down ‘em all like dogs. We’ll give this one his life.”

And the team beat feet.

It took nearbouts an hour to find the next forgotten lodgement of prefabs. Exterior paneling had warped with time; grasses overtook porches and tree roots cracked pavement. Parvati—still shouldered between the captain and Felix—awoke a few seconds before approach, and she was sourced a bed to cozy in while the rest spread out, parsing buildings for loot and lucre. Afterwhich, spoils were split amongst the crew, who then went to claiming shacks, each becoming bossman of their own space for an eve.

Left alone to devastate a box of Rizzo’s Purpleberry Crunch, Archie was half-done when a quiet knock preceded a quiet person entering the domicile.

“Ma’am,” Parvati greeted, smiling small and nodding the same.

“Hey, you.” Archie placed her dinner on the ground beside the bed. “Come on in and close the door.”

Shuffling over, the mechanic settled at her side, legs dangling over the cot. “Thanks.” She rubbed at her arms with her bruised and comely hands. “Say, this room ain’t too bad. Should see the water damage in the one I’m settled in. Not complaining, mind.”

Unfurling a flannel from her collection of found blankets, Archie lobbed it over their laps. “Went through the mill today, huh?” 

“In all honest? Head’s still ringing.” Parvati pulled the blanket around her waist. “Sorry to be such a bother.”

“You got shot. That’s not a bother. It ain’t even your doing.” 

“No, I meant now.” The overwrought wrench jockey was made of the roundest, brownedest eyes. “No worries, though,” she promised. “I’ll clear out afore you want your shut-eye. But for a time I was hoping—”

“You won’t stay?”

Archie didn’t cotton to the habit of cutting off the soft-talking mechanic, but now there seemed merit. With Parvati’s words leaning at one thing, and her body-language saying else, it was time for the older woman to step up

Archie couldn’t blame the concussed grease monkey for not wanting to be by herself right yet, just as she couldn’t fault her for keeping her walls. A person had a right to her distrust; to her hesitance; to the safety bought by both. But Parvati, particularly browbeat by big-hats and their power, wasn’t going to ask her captain (of all people) if she might stay, so said captain would need fill in those blanks.

“I was hoping that’s why you came by, actually. Ain’t looking forward to a night alone,” explained the captain. Dead truthful, she added, “not on this rock, anyhow.”

“Yeah, it is a little… spooky?” Parvati sat a smidge straighter, visibly perking. “You mean it, Arch?”

“ _Laws_ , yes,” gushed the captain. “Get your stuff. We can do this head-to-toe.”

After they’d newly settled—Parvati’s blankets joining the fray, and her Dark Matter Bar making the rounds—Felix poked his head inside the domicile. “This is where the party’s at, huh?”

Ten minutes on had Archie cross-legged at her cot-end, one of the vicar’s real-deal books in hand, though the pages hardly kept interest while Felix and Ellie played cards. As Parvati monched a mock apple, she made her queries, having never had the rules explained, and it was quite the conglomerate that Max was met with when he breezed through the door, Purpleberry Wine in hand.

“Vic!”

“Vicky!”

“Hey, Mister Vicar.”

 _“_ I _... Oh.”_

It seemed he had harbored some assumptions as to the room’s occupancy.

“Want me to deal you in, Max?” Ellie’s fingers were at the ready to do so. “Bishops are wild, after all.”

“No. Uh, thank you, Miss Fenhill. I only came to bid the captain goodnight.”

If the doc’s tone could kill, disbelief would be its means of murder. “Mm-hmm. And with a bottle of such fine spirits, too.”

A squeak resounded through the room. Hands clapped over her trap, Parvati blinked between the captain and the vicar, her bubbly expression encouraged by excitement. “But I thought you two weren’t…! That is to say, not no more. Then, does that mean…?”

As Max’s throat rolled against his collar, Archie peeled herself from sitting.

“I’ll see you out, vicar,” she suggested. “Needing a smoke, anyhow.”

In the cool evening air, the night-sounds suggested sinisterisms thanks to precedent set by the day. But, then, there was that sky: those colours of off-kilter hue when on good ol’, ho-hum Earth. Chartreuse and maroon seemed rights and property of neon adverts back yonder, but here—here they were out there, and free. They smelled of sulphur (which was handing her a headache), but they were free.

“You’re lucky to have been raised in Halcyon. With these skies, and this greenage.”

Butting out her spent smoke on the ground, Archie joined the vicar on the porch bench. Max spoke drolly. “Yes. Quite spectacular. And how **is** the state of your rash, Captain Quaice?”

The clamorous cavorting of cards and crew inside had captain a-smile. Ready to kick-off their comparatively-quiet rodeo, Archie motioned for and commended the wine to her lips upon receiving. With a drink and a dram, she espied the man suddenly watching the skyline in wonder—as in, he seemed keen to wonder on what impressed her.

“So,” started Archie. “I’m assuming once we deliver you to your translator we’ll be down a body. Mind terribly some forestallin’ the trip to Fallbrook? Unless we come upon it beforehand.”

“As ship captain, the decision is yours. Should Chaney get away, however.” The cliff-hanging was less threat than cautioning.

Archie assured him, head canted. “Should the unlikeliness of Chaney hoofing it come to pass, we track him. If you’re concerned he’s going to cut dirt to another rock, however, I’m perfectly peachy with—”

“I am not,” Vicar Max clarified. “Concerned, that is. This **is** where a Philosophist attempting to lay low would most reasonably find sanctuary, after all.” 

Despite agitating at possibly missing the sought-after scholar, sense had the Scientician surrendering his scruples. The cajoled vicar moved on, nodding towards her lap. “May I see your hand?”

With another swallow of sweet wine, Archie offered her palm. “Ellie’s got salve on it. The redness is petering out some, but it itches like a penned sprat.”

Her hand in his fingers, Max inspected measures of mottled flesh. While the vicar’s calluses no longer stupefied, the tender contact did. His thumb drifted softly, studying reactions, researching ravage, and surveying the spiting heat at her skin. Watching silently, Archie wished she were three swigs deeper in the bottle, a blush creeping ‘cross her from chest to cheek, while that familiar flutter spurred a hankering.

They hadn’t touched—or talked—in days. When exchanges _were_ made, it was at the cost of furtive stares frustrating themselves into expressions of offense-taken. He’d been deceived, she’d been disappointed; however, their assumptions were a plumb example of the ‘ass-of-you-and-me’ principle, which was perhaps why things were mellowing betwixt them: both were owning their mistakes. Archie should have accepted Max’s free-will fueled outburst, just as Max should have accepted that Archie would find it overkill. Presupposing either would blindly accept each other’s foibles on the basis of casual fucking were their own fault.

Leastways, that was hunch Archie was hypothetizing towards. She sure knew where **her** guilt lie.

“Curative efforts and senseless rebellion may be within the good doctor’s purview, but bedside manner?” Max sneered at what he was seeing, his thumb still exploring the rash. “Miss Fenhill leaves much to be desired.”

Disappearing into his decided-on dwelling, and turning over to her the full bottle of spirits, Max returned to quite a bit of it swilled away and Archie still waiting patiently. Seated once more, the vicar loosened the lid of a jar, scooping fragrant gobs of lotion with his fingers.

“I have no doubt that what is already applied here will right any serious issues. This should soothe the itch, though.” Recovering her hand, he slathered the floral-scented stuff around her knuckles, massaging it in with his thumbs.

Relief came quick. She’d numbed to the discomfort gnawing even to her elbow, but, as the vicar ministered to her inflammations, Archie felt a measure of the days’ stresses melt, too. It cooled her skin; it satisfied that drive for succor which otherwise set her to fidgeting, and threshing.

She watched him. He knew it. When Max looked into her face, his regard was answered by the woman losing a gentle, affected _“aw.”_

“Health problems will only have Fallbrook slipping farther away,” came his practicality. “Although this ”—Max nodded at their hands—”did not seem to slow you down when dealing with marauders today. Care to talk about it?”

 _Ah, confession: a balm for the soul, and a plain pain for everything else._

“Why? So I can get heck over leaving that bastard alive? Even after he nigh-on killed Parvati?”

“If that is what you wish to discuss,” Max answered lightly. “I was more interested in your brand of leniency. You gave him his life, but not the ability to do anything more than crawl away with it. I wouldn’t categorize that as terribly forgiving.”

The satisfaction sustained as he smoothed the salve in had Archie’s shoulders shedding tension she hadn’t realized was stored. Sighing deeply, the woman’s sight slipped behind closed lids as she insisted, ”forgiving’ ain’t relevant, here. I’ve no compunction with maiming if that means a body desists and lives to see another day. Never know when one of these clods might turn it around, Mister Vicar.”

“I would argue that we do. In fact, we most certainly know when this afternoon’s delinquent will ‘turn it around’, as you say. _Never_. You must realize that marauder will amount to nothing more than rapt bait, now. Thanks to the wounds you inflicted.”

Eyes snapping open, their fire softened to a flicker of regret. “I don’t know that,” Archie maintained. “ ** _You_** don’t know that.”

Max’s quick study turned to lengthy inquest as his stare roamed, reached; judged. He took her other hand, and began laving lotion in, the rubber-stamp of approval lilting his crafty, curving lips.

“How interesting. You’re developing a spine. We might see you down here in the dirt with us yet.”

The sun had dipped so low as to be done for the day. Appreciating the sky’s rolling with colour and clouds, stars and strangeness, the Unreliable’s captain weren’t forcing conversation with her off-topic tangent—she was only aiming to organize her thoughts. It had been some time since they discoursed, and, if nothing else, Vicar Max’s dogging, disputatious discussions usually made her think over-thorough.

“Alright. So. Monarch by nightfall tomorrow. Chat-up Phineus’ contact, and… Hey, how much you willing to put on this Broker having snuffed it? If he’s not satisfying his dead-lines, I’d say it’s pretty likely.”

Concentrating on the hands within his, Max cogitated. “Do you, perhaps, _wish_ the Information Broker to be dead? You procrastinated in making landfall here. Is it possible that you are hesitant to support your criminally-notorious, Board-wanted benefactor?”

In sincere amusement, Archie snorted. “Me? Dragging heels? C’mon. Gladys’ navkey was too rich. Might as well been askin’ for a moon.” Leering suspiciously, she leaned closer. “And what’s with you setting on ulterior motives all the time? All this fixating on two-facing… Either a thing is, or it ain’t.”

“Such as right or wrong? Good and evil? That is remarkably black and white, captain. Your karma is less forgiving than my Equation.”

It seemed Max’s search for truth could only come at the cost of criticizing every theological alternative. Unimpressed, Archie shot back,”only because there’s no room for forgiveness in your Plan. There’s no vocabulary for it. If you like.”

“Hm.” Max’s head tilted. “True.”

Withdrawing her hands, Archie worked away small hold-outs of grease. “Is there any chance _you_ want me hemming and hawing over Phineas? Like you said, he **is** ‘criminally notorious’. He’s _Board-wanted_. I’ve asked the crew a few times, now, if you’re all cozy with—”

“Which I am,” Max reminded quickly. “I may believe the Board to be the best avenue of order, but its members aren’t without bias. So long as we avoid dismantling the only system of structure in this universe, you’ll have no complaints from me.” Taking up the wine, the man passed the bottle after a long sip escorted by a lingering stare. “Besides, so far in his dealings with you,” the vicar pointed out, “Dr. Welles has hardly been the cause of chaos. That particular sin is yours.”

Finding side-stepping a rather loathsome flavor of lying, Archie finally swallowed her reticence. “If I’m being outright, maybe I am a touch hesitant. With the Board and Phineus at odds, how will waking the Hope amount to anything?”

“I suppose,” theorized the man of science, “one hundred-thousand colonists without blind loyalty to the Board could make for a sizable revolt. If all were revived.”

She swallowed; she sighed; she tightened her hands to fists. “That’d be a lot of blood.”

As was the wont of things, Captain Quaice’s disinclination towards dust-ups had Max’s tone distant. He didn’t ask after her chafing at the strength required for survival; instead, he challenged the motives for moving galaxies over to a fresh frontier inevitably fraught with the difficulties of rebirth.

“When you left Earth, what did you think Halcyon would be?”

“Freedom,” Archie wistfulled. “An opportunity to make something I couldn’t back home. The contract seemed like nothing. A couple years of service, and then… I don’t know. I thought we’d be farmers. That’s what I was before the drug-peddling. Got laid off as means-of-production became a might more mechanically inclined, but I’d liked the work. I thought I’d have my own acreage, here. To sow, and to nurture. Figured we’d all eat lots and have room to stretch our legs. Not sure why.”

A man of certain ambition, Max blinked. “Then... all you wished was to become a laborer.”

Grinning at his flabbergast, Archie downed a splash of their communal libation. “On Earth, that wasn’t too bad,” she said with tongue deluged in sweet. “With layoffs and wage decreases? Not a sore spot to be in at all. Besides, that was what I thought. It wasn’t what I wanted.”

“And what **did** you want?”

Archie shrugged. “A ship. A crew. An endless mess of chores for some hairbrained, agitatin’ science type. Rashes, bumps, and bullet holes. You know: the dream.”

Accepting the ambrosial intoxicant, Max brushed her hand before sipping. “It’s good you took to the opportunity when you did, then. Of course, you seem to recognize a fine one when you see it.”

With a smirk getting drunk on his sly-talking rather than the saccharine swill, Archie still stewed over whether she were seeing too much in that. Their time was coming to a close, if the door to their casual courting hadn’t slammed already. Their lately whisky-sponsored rendezvous of dancing, kissing, and letdown made their ending an organic thing. Like crops come fall, it was gone with the chill.

But curiosity over a cherished thing wasn’t shameful, and Archie wondered.

“Is that what this is? An opportunity?”

“You must understand: studying the Universal Equation as I have, one comes to see these events as inevitable. An opportunity of fate, if you’d like.”

“So you just went with it, is what you’re saying.”

Of spare sentiment and frugal feeling, it was real belief that washed his features. The awe in his words— _Laws_ , how his piety could sweep feet.

“Is there not an elegance to that? A stark, inescapable beauty? A millennia ago, an omnipotent intelligence placed us both on this path. For better, or for worse. For whatever _this_ may be.”

“Got no problem with the how,” capitulated Archie warmly, admiring his pretty talk. “Going with the flow is an old mantra—provided the flow doesn’t want me decking anyone. It’s the why of it I don’t appreciate. Some ancient hotshot does **not** get to reckon what’s best for me.”

The vicar simpered. “Then, are you suggesting this has been ‘what’s best’?”

She shook her head humorously. “I still don’t know what the cuss I’m doing here, Max,” Archie openly admitted. “Everything’s been a fog since Phineus chipped me out of the icebox, and it’s not because I’m availing myself of every pharmaceutical I come across. But us, and whatever we... were: it’s made as much sense as anything.”

Turning whole-bodied to add consequence to her confession, the woman faced him completely for the first time that eve. Smug, sarcastic; self-important: Maximillian DeSoto—sensitive to criticism and incapable of compromise—was a character piece; a portrait of survival and of sticking to one’s guns. They’d never been long for a long time, but the little time they’d had had been grand. He was a fighter, which meant she could count on his surviving once gone. And that was important.

“It weren’t a distraction, or a dalliance to fill the hours,” insisted Archie. “Not at the start, and not near the end. I take to opportunity, too. It’s why I signed on to the Hope.”

While not at his lips, Max’s smile was deep-set. At his eyes—in every softly wrinkled corner—there was triumphant recognition of reasoning. “So you also simply ‘went with it’, as well.”

“Yeah.” She grinned. “Ain’t we a pair of peas?” Archie motioned at his lap. “Only one of us is strangling the hooch, though.”

The vicar handed it over.

Feeling the air cleared of bad humours, the Unreliable’s captain comfortably sprawled about the bench, legs askew. This was how she’d rather: send him off sans ill will. It had her roseating, and that optimism got her small-talking.

“Good haul from this place,” the woman noted. “Can’t believe what marauders’ll leave when they pick a place over. Who’s claiming that rifle mod? Seemed you and Felix were about ready to take ten paces and draw.”

“I believe I’ll be letting Mr. Millstone have that one.”

Her jaw dropped. _“Really?”_

“It would be a waste otherwise,” asserted the vicar. “I’ve had Miss Holcomb inspect my firearm. Her ken goes beyond saltuna canneries, apparently. I believe her when she says I’m better off replacing the piece. I didn’t wish to make an issue of it—I’ll pay for a new shooter myself—but should you see anything while in Stellar Bay…”

“Don’t worry. We’ll get you well-heeled with a new gun.” Archie frowned, sitting deeper. “Aw. But that’s a bit of sad. You’ve only had the one lead pusher since I met yah.”

“It is a tool, captain. Nothing to become nostalgic over.”

Familiarity with his apathy had Archie flashing chiclets, despite the flippant eye roll. “Yeah, yeah. Just a thing. In and out of one’s life—that’s how it goes. Same as people, right? They come in, and they keep on tumbling by. Try to hold on to the good ones, ‘n hope the bad don’t stick.”

Considering the leap from point A to B—broken guns to bonds of man—it occurred to the woman that the wine was hitting a stomach empty of all but sugar. Blinking to clear cobwebs, Archie came again, with marshalled sobriety, “that **is** a good gun, though. You sure there’s no saving her?”

“Fairly certain, yes.” Max observed her over from brow to mouth, eyes lingering; throat swallowing. “You know, that point-of-view rather explains why you’re quick to remind me I’m leaving. _‘Hope the bad ones don’t stick,’_ ” he repeated ridingly.

She blinked. “No point in skittering ‘round it.”

Staring at the stars, Archie wanted to reply with smarmy accusations as to his generous self-effacement, but she wouldn’t. She wasn’t embarrassed, strictly, of the coming honesty to crest at her lips; rather, the affirmation seemed uncalled for. He knew, she knew—they both **_knew_**. 

Still, looking up, fingers focused at the edges of the Purpleberry’s label—tracing; tearing—she found a place to confess between the twilight and the moons. 

“You wouldn’t be one of the bad ones. Not in my life.”

“No?” Max’s face was crooked with victory. 

Groaning, griping, Archie placed their drink on the ground, and crossed her arms at her chest. “We’re not kids, vicar; let’s not play like we are. You know you ain’t on my shit list. We left the ship in a spat, but that doesn’t mean I’ll be happy to see you off.”

Always smug, always sarcastic, the man had to point out, “It stands to reason, then, that you’d be happy if I stayed.”

“It’s better this way,” shrugged the woman partial to pragmatics. “We were always aimed at an expiry date. Your stint on the ship was short-term, and our metaphysical differences aren’t exactly fit for forever, you know?”

“They serve their purpose. But I suppose you’re right.” Leaning back, Max draped his arm along the bench behind her, groaning softly with some stiffness from the day. “Fodder for lively debate too often leads to something hard to put out. For us, that is.”

There was regret, there; apology right around the corner from reflections and affection by the way he was eye-balling her.

Gathering herself together, gerding against that feel of lonesome, Archie curled into the nook of his body created by his arm at the bench’s back.

“It was nice at times, though,” the woman consented, smelling spice and rosewood strong at his neck. “What was it you said? A ‘stark, inescapable beauty’? Theatric, but pretty. That’s really, truly pretty, Max.”

Aquivered by cologne, prevailed upon by his heat and the moment and the moments to come, Archie pressed in. Chasing some last, nectarous taste of what they’d had, she found it lavished about the vicar’s lips as they kissed, the air now stilling; the night gone soft.

Fake for artificial flavor; sweet with memories of fruit; imbued by the bite of booze: like the wine on his tongue, their affair was a concoction of bitters, half-truths, and honeyed touch that bade the thing bearable. How they tussled; how they taught each other new types of impatience. From insisting fate weren’t a chosen thing, to choosing to slip her tongue deeper as Archie tilted her head, moaning against Max’s wet breath, taking all of him that she could while crumbling in their kiss, his lips so silken for a man so tough.

Cupping his cheek, she sucked at his bottom lip, tugging him to twitching in her grasp. Max groaned, arms encircling her, but that animation bought them an end as the vicar pulled back, expression dazed but gaze intent on understanding.

“What?” Archie looked from one eye to the other.

“Given—” Max swallowed; ran a hand across his hair, and then over his mouth. “Given my impending departure, and the state of things before disembarking the Unreliable, I…”

“You ain’t gone yet, vicar. We got some time for sorries.” Leaning close, Archie whispered in his ear before nipping at his lobe. “ _I’ve_ got time for them.”

Dragging needing lips along his neck, Archie had Max senselessly reposed, his head resting back, eyes closed, and chest replete with gasps as she navigated his neck in quick kissing, admiring every stretch of skin; every vein; every age-line, wrinkle, and birthmark. She followed the map of his being—all these makings of his body—down the road of her desire which was mounting as the man hummed beneath her.

“Archimedes,” keened the vicar.

“Yes, Max?” mouthed the woman across his skin.

Pushing her off with plentiful, dear deference, the man’s mein was mussed worse than his hair.

“I am not owed anything by you,” he avowed amidst heavy breath.

Archie peeked through mousy locks fallen about her face. “I know. I know you’re not cheap. Learned it with that not-so-much a get-well gift. I just don’t want you leaving mad, vicar.”

Surprise sobered his expression. “And what has riled my temper today?”

“Same as last time,” shrugged she. “When I said what I did about the scuffle on the Groundbreaker. I didn’t mean...”

Max made better debate with his cool silence than his trademark caterwauling ever could. 

Attention called to what she’d just spouted by The Look, Archie snorted, her own words slapping her with embarrassed spite. But, when one leaves their southern properties in charge of reasoning, sense rather goes the way of horned-up, hapless patheticness.

“Laws, I really am like a kid, here,” Archie realized. She winced at Max, lamenting the false apology. ”Truthful? I’m not sorry. Hell, I’d say it again.”

“Just as I would do it again,” Max concurred.

Lies couldn’t last between them. Both were too proud to pretend. Like paperwork and processing fees, its reliability as a reality was a comfort. When time came for it, neither Archie nor Max could muster strength to sell their standards; this honesty eclipsed fictions and forgeries formed for the sake of fragile, self-interested love. Archie liked it. Better than promises; better than oaths. The man was dependable; his curt, courteous candor more so.

Of course, that truth reiterated another. Knowing him well meant she knew they’d never last. And now she truly realized it.

Max tucked hair between her ear, his hand lingering at her cheek. “I was never looking for permission, or sanction, from you. Were I staying, however—”

“But you’re not,” she cut-in.

A grin-slackened grimace faded as he held her gaze again. “Yes, well. Your support, with or without approval, has meant the world to me.” Pressing in, Max's plush lips pursued her cheek, placing a soft, chaste kiss.

Standing, the vicar said, “pleasant dreams, captain.”

His goodnight felt like a last goodbye.


End file.
